t there for more than
half an hour, and very likely should have remained much longer had the
Old Squire not made his appearance, glancing curiously over the dam, a
few rods below me.

It struck me as a little singular that he should be there so early and
so very soon after breakfast. He had an axe on his shoulder, however,
and it occurred to me that it might possibly be that he was there to
mend the pasture fence. When he saw me sitting there, he smiled broadly,
and coming nearer said, "Oh, this isn't nearly so good a brook for
fishing as the other one on the west side."

"'Fishing!'" thought I. "How little he knows what brought me here! Can
he not see that I haven't a pole?"

"Don't know exactly why," he continued, retrospectively, "but there
never were nearly so many trout here as in the west brook. I meant to
have given you and Addison a day to go over there before now, but work
has been rather pressing ever since you came."

I rose from the stone, thinking--and not wholly sorry to think--that
suicide must necessarily be postponed for that day, at least; for I
could not, of course, harrow the old gentleman's feelings by plunging
into the Little Sea before his very eyes. He seemed so guileless, too,
and so wholly unsuspecting of my fell design!

As we walked away, he told me of great trout which he had caught when a
boy, particularly of one big three-pound trout which he had captured at
a deep hole in the west brook, down near the lake.

My mind was still too much disturbed to enjoy these piscatorial
reminiscences, however; and noting this, after a time, Gramp opened
another subject with me.

"A man has lately made an offer for my farm and timber lands here," said
he. "I do not know that I shall accept it; but I have had some thoughts
of selling and moving out West. If I should, I suppose you would have
to go back to Philadelphia. If I went West to look for a farm, I should
call at Philadelphia on my way. You and I would make the trip there
together."

It is astonishing what an effect that last remark of grandfather's
produced upon me. The whole world changed from deepest, darkest blue to
rose color in one minute; and I said, provisionally, to myself that even
if he did not sell so that we could start for a month, I could perhaps
endure it.

Observing the cheerier light in my face, probably, the old gentleman
laughed good-naturedly. He had not forgotten what it is to be a boy and
feel a boy's intense sorro